Strategy Starts With the Right Problem

What does it really mean when we say someone is a good strategist?

For me, the image that comes to mind is the world of Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Figures like Zhuge Liang and Sima Yi, locked in a long contest of minds. The strategist is the one who sees several moves ahead, sets traps, anticipates reactions, and turns apparent weakness into advantage. Victory belongs to the one who outthinks and outlasts.

That was how I used to picture strategy.
An experience involving a senior leader reframed that view for me.

The work on the table was solid. Clear thinking. Careful analysis. Well-presented options. The room was ready to move forward. Yet the senior leader kept returning to a single question:
What is the problem we are actually trying to solve?

Each time the discussion drifted toward solutions, he slowed it down and pulled us back. At first, it felt unnecessary. Almost frustrating. But gradually, something became clear. While there were many good answers, there was no shared agreement on which problem truly mattered. Until that was settled, every solution was at risk of being directionally wrong.

That moment echoed ideas from Good Strategy, Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt.
Rumelt argues that strategy is less about brilliance and more about judgment. In particular, three practices stood out for me.

First, carry a virtual panel of experts in your mind.
Before putting an idea before others, test it internally. Ask how people whose judgment you respect might critique it. Not to seek approval, but to expose fault lines, contradictions, and blind spots early.

Second, choose a corner solution rather than trying to accommodate everything.
Good strategy focuses. It commits to one interpretation of what matters most instead of spreading effort thinly across competing priorities. Focus creates leverage.

Third, privately commit yourself to a judgment.
To commit is to choose which issues are critical and which are not — and to accept that others may disagree. But this commitment is precisely what allows learning to happen. When you take a position, you increase the probability of disagreement, and with it, the chance of discovering where your thinking is incomplete or wrong.

That was the quiet shift for me.

Strategy is not primarily about being clever or seeing ten moves ahead. It is about the discipline of naming the real problem, narrowing the field, and standing behind a judgment long enough to learn from it.

Sometimes, the most strategic move a leader can make is not to push the room forward — but to slow it down until the problem itself is finally clear.